USAID Timor-Leste - Programs - Highlight: Improved Health

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A resident of Estado in Ermera district availing of primary health services at the new Clinic Café Timor in his village.

Photo: NCBA/CCT

Clinic Café Timor Opens 4 More Health Clinics in Villages (April 7, 2009)

Cooperativa Café Timor's health care division, Clinic Café Timor, recently opened a small health clinic in a village called Estado in Ermera district (west of the capital, Dili). Three more similar small health clinics will follow suit over the next six months in the coffee-growing regions. The new health clinics are a welcome addition to CCT's existing network of 11 fixed clinics and 28 mobile clinics that provides primary health care services to more than one-sixth of Timor-Leste's rural population.

The original idea behind Clinic Café Timor was to provide quality and affordable health care services for cooperative members who were outside the government health system. However, they have since expanded to provide services to the general population in the coffee-growing regions. The network has become the largest private health service provider in the country, and the government now makes a contribution to the health program that roughly matches the cost of serving non-members. This is an excellent example of public/private coordination -where the end user (the people) benefit.

Additionally, Clinic Café Timor provides extension services for a Maternal and Child Health Program, reaching rural families in nearly a third of the country.

Several institutions have come together to make the construction and operation of the four additional clinics possible. The National Cooperatives' Business Association (NCBA), which is implementing USAID's Timor-Leste Economic Rehabilitation and Development Project (assisting CCT), was able to pool resources from Starbucks, the global coffee retailer, as well as local communities. Starbucks donated the funds for the construction of the clinics while the lands were donations from CCT and local communities. This corporate alliance between USAID, CCT and the MoH serves as a model for forward thinking and collaborative development.

The ongoing operation of the health clinics is supported by USAID, CCT, and the Ministry of Health. The community extension program based out of the new clinics was developed by a grant from MILK, a Singapore-based children's charity with ongoing operations funded by USAID.

This one of a kind cooperation between different institutions will directly benefit the remote villages of Estado, Lulirema and Poetali in Ermera district, and Manulobas in Ainaro district (south of the capital, Dili). Like Estado, the other three villages will soon have easily accessible health clinics offering general medical services and procedures, maternal and child health services, immunizations and antenatal care and family planning advice and procedures.

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